Speed of Light?

Question

Is the speed of light the fastest or is there anything that's faster than the speed of light, considering that light travels at an astonishing speed of +- 300,000 kilometers per second!

Answer 1

As far as we currently know, light is the fastest 'thing' in the universe. It's speed is like a universal speed limit that nothing can breach, so yes, it's the fastest.

This comes from Einstein who showed that as a body approcahes the speed of light, its mass approaches infinity. So the amount of energy required to get even closer increases exponentially. Thus, no sub-light speed body can ever actually travel at the speed of light (at least based on current physics).

I'm sure some people are going to start talking about tacyons in a minute... but they are only theoretical. They 'apparently' can never travel slower than the speed of light.

Answer 2

The speed of light is not only really fast, but it is the barrier speed limit for everything. The reason this is, is because as something with mass goes faster and faster, it's mass will get bigger and bigger. You and me don't experience this really because our everyday movement is very, very slow compared to the speed of light. Anyways, your mass will go up to infinite once you reach the speed of light, which would require an infinite amount of energy to do so. Thats why everything that does go the speed of light, is massless. So the speed of light is definitely the speed barrier for all things in the universe.

Now there are some hypothetical particles which are said to always go faster than the speed of light. But like I said, they are hypothetical and we have never even caught a trace of them.

Answer 3

well in theory according to einstein's special thoery of relativity, YES the speed of light is the fastest ie 3810^8 m/s as u said!

but i believe may be we could make something that can travel even faster than the speed of light. i even think this would be a main principle on which the time machine will be built .And i will definitely build that !!!!!!!

Answer 4

Anything that moves in space occupies a particular point for so many ticks of the universe's time base.
The faster it goes the less number of time ticks it it sustains in a point in space.
A single tick is a quantum unit,it cannot be divided and exist.
The speed of light represents a single time pulse,to increase it's speed would be attempting to force it to exist for a period of time that cannot exist.

Answer 5

Well, in *our* universe, there can be nothing faster than light. If you want to travel *outside* the universe, there are several possibilities - including a realm where nothing can move *slower* than the speed of light.

Answer 6

Basically light is held at the absolute maximum for travel in the univeriverse as we can preceive it.

There has been speculation over the Tachyon, which has to travel above light speed.

Answer 7

there is nothing known to travel faster than light. Breaking the light barrier would be an incredible feat.

Answer 8

There is nothing faster than light. Not only have we never found anything faster, the theory of relativity says there could never be anything faster.

Answer 9

It has long been known theoretically that it is possible for the "group velocity" of light to exceed c. One recent experiment made the group velocity of laser beams travel for extremely short distances through caesium atoms at 300 times c. In 2002, at the Université de Moncton, physicist Alain Haché made history by sending pulses at a group velocity of three times light speed over a long distance for the first time, transmitted through a 120-metre cable made from a coaxial photonic crystal. However, it is not possible to use this technique to transfer information faster than c: the velocity of information transfer depends on the front velocity (the speed at which the first rise of a pulse above zero moves forward) and the product of the group velocity and the front velocity is equal to the square of the normal speed of light in the material.

Exceeding the group velocity of light in this manner is comparable to exceeding the speed of sound by arranging people distantly spaced in a line, and asking them all to shout "I'm here!", one after another with short intervals, each one timing it by looking at their own wristwatch so they don't have to wait until they hear the previous person shouting. Another example can be seen when watching ocean waves washing up on shore. With a narrow enough angle between the wave and the shoreline, the breakers travel along the wave's length much faster than the wave's movement inland.

The speed of light may also appear to be exceeded in some phenomena involving evanescent waves, such as tunnelling. Experiments indicate that the phase velocity and the group velocity of evanescent waves may exceed c; however, it would appear that the front velocity does not exceed c, so, again, it is not possible for information to be transmitted faster than c.

In quantum mechanics, certain quantum effects may be transmitted at speeds greater than c (indeed, action at a distance has long been perceived by some as a problem with quantum mechanics: see EPR paradox, interpretations of quantum mechanics). For example, the quantum states of two particles can be entangled, so the state of one particle fixes the state of the other particle (say, one must have spin +½ and the other must have spin −½). Until the particles are observed, they exist in a superposition of two quantum states, (+½, −½) and (−½, +½). If the particles are separated and one of them is observed to determine its quantum state then the quantum state of the second particle is determined automatically. If, as in some interpretations of quantum mechanics, one presumes that the information about the quantum state is local to one particle, then one must conclude that second particle takes up its quantum state instantaneously, as soon as the first observation is carried out. However, it is impossible to control which quantum state the first particle will take on when it is observed, so no information can be transmitted in this manner. The laws of physics also appear to prevent information from being transferred through more clever ways and this has led to the formulation of rules such as the no-cloning theorem and the no-communication theorem.

So-called superluminal motion is also seen in certain astronomical objects, such as the jets of radio galaxies and quasars. However, these jets are not actually moving at speeds in excess of the speed of light: the apparent superluminal motion is a projection effect caused by objects moving near the speed of light and at a small angle to the line of sight.

Answer 10

There is nothing in this dimension that travels faster than light.